I heard the story of a father and a buddy who was single talking and the father was telling of the wonders of married life. He said "Do you know what it means to come home at night and have three wonderful, beautiful, obedient children that are so glad to see you. Do you know what it means to come home at night and have these kids just think you are the most perfect person in the world and hang on to your every word?" The single guy says "No, what does it mean?" The father said "It means you are in the wrong house!"

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I want to work with you this evening on a certain text. The text is from I Corinthians, so if you have your Bible turn with me to it. But as you do I want you to make sure everybody here has a coffee bean. Does everyone have a bean? If you don't have a bean we are going to get some people to help you get a bean. You need a bean for tonight. Take out your coffee bean. Did you smell it? These have just been opened today. They came straight from Atlanta to here on Friday. Anybody taste it - put it in your mouth? You can do whatever you want to with it, but you are holding in your hand literally the most expensive coffee in the world. There is only about a couple of thousand pounds of this coffee that comes up on the world market every year. It is called Kopi Luwak coffee. It only comes from one part of the planet. A part of the planet that is known for it's great coffee, Indonesia. The island is Sumatra. That is how we get the name java, from this island.

This coffee bean has an interesting story. This is supposedly the most exquisite, exotic, and is the most expensive coffee in the world. It costs $300 a pound. They sell this coffee by the ounce, the only coffee they sell by the ounce. You have one of these beans. If you want to taste this coffee you are going to have to pool your beans and roast them yourself. Kopi is Indonesian for coffee, Luwak is Indonesian for the name of how we get this coffee. Luwak is a cat. It is a Civet cat. This is a nocturnal creature, comes out only at night. This cat is about the size of a fox and it has an interesting story. This cat is the Juan Valdez of the animal kingdom. This cat only picks the most perfect coffee cherries to eat. It comes out at night and wanders all over the island of Sumatra and will only pick the most perfect coffee cherries to eat. It would rather starve than to feast on a Kona coffee bean, or a Blue Mountain coffee bean. It will only pick the most perfect coffee beans. It eats those coffee cherries and digests them.

In the morning the locals harvest these beans. Everyone of these beans that you are holding has passed through a Civet cat. Anybody put it in your mouth? When I first told the team here about this, that I wanted to do this, some of them didn't believe me. But Jason can testify that he has found proof that this is a true story by searching the Internet on three different sites. Actually, this coffee came from the only place you can buy it in the United States, in Atlanta. Martinez is the brand of the coffee, $300 a pound for these beans. Each one comes out of the dung of the Civet cat. It has a name - this coffee does - and some of you might imagine what it is. I can't say it. It goes by another name, although I can't say it, I have a person who cuts my hair and she has a little white furry dog called a Shih Tzu. And so this is Shih Tzu coffee, alright?

Isn't it amazing how God works! See, in nature you see this over and over again. What is honey? The nectar of nature. But what? Bee Shih Tzu. That is what honey is. In Asian cultures Geishas spend days trying to look beautiful with this white paint. Do you know what this white paint is that they put on their faces? Nightingale Shih Tzu - you got it! What do mushrooms grow in? What makes them so succulent and tasty? Well, you know what it is! I want to challenge you to go to the fish market at Meijer and ask the guy behind the counter for a sardine. They will laugh in your face. You see, there is no such thing as a sardine fish. Sardine is a name that we give to trash fish that they put together in a can. There is a halibut, and there is haddock and salmon, but no sardine. It doesn't exist. My favorite way of expressing how God works and bring nature and theology together is in the dove. The dove does not exist. It is a poetic name for a trash bird called a pigeon. And God chose as the symbol of the Holy Spirit a trash bird. We prettify it by calling it a dove, but really it is a pigeon. Isn't it amazing how God works! Jesus had a mustard seed. I have a coffee bean today. But the whole gospel is right in this coffee bean. It is all right here.

Where was Jesus born? Jesus comes to this earth and is born in a trash place of the planet called the city of Bethlehem, the city of David. And where was he born? In a stable. What goes on in a stable? More Shih Tzu. And so what were Jesus's first smells as he was born into this world? What were Jesus's last smells as he exited this world? Where was he crucified? A place called Golgatha, which was the garbage dump for the city of Jersalem, the trash place.

I want us to read I Corinthians again. I want us to hear the power of these words. Let's start with verse 1:25: Divine folly is wiser than human wisdom and divine weakness stronger than human strength. My brothers, consider your call, my sisters, consider what sort of people you are whom God has called. Few of you are people of wisdom, by any human standard. Few are powerful or highly born. Yet to shame the wise God had chosen what is foolish in the world. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God has chosen things low and contemptible. Things that are not, to overthrow existing order. And so there is no place for human pride in the presence of God for you are in Christ Jesus by God's act. For God has made Him our wisdom. He is our righteousness, in Him we are consecrated and set free. And so, in the words of scripture, if you must boast, boast of the Lord."

The gospel is about the way in which what is most weak, what is most despised, what is most contemptible in your life, in this world, can become, through the power of the Holy Spirit, what is most beautiful, what is most radiant, and what can be most a blessing. You see, we have a topsy-turvey upside down, inside out gospel. Like you do to a sock, you turn it inside out, upside down, topsy-turvey. And that is what the values of the gospel does to the wisdom of this world. If you want to be first, you have to be willing to be last. I am so sick of First United Methodist Churches! When is the last time you heard of a church called Last United Methodist Church? But, that is theologically correct. Because in God's eyes the first will be the last. So why aren't we calling ourselves the Last United Methodist Churches? Do you want to be strong? You have to be willing to be weak. Do you want to win?

You have to be willing to lose. We have an upside down, topsy-turvey gospel that says whatever is buried trash in your life, God can turn into buried treasure. Whatever you think are the trash cans of your existence, God can turn them in to treasure chests. The Hebrew word for hell was Sheol. Heaven was Shiloh. God can turn any Sheol into a Shiloh if you will only let the spirit of God take that pain, that suffering, that ugliness, that contemptible, and let the Spirit turn it. I am thinking of a composer named Ludwig von Beethoven. What is the worst thing that could happen to a composer? You become deaf. The last twelve years of Beethoven's life he was deaf. Think of the pain, think of the agony. And yet, of these last twelve years Beethoven composed four of his five greatest symphonies. You see, he allowed the compost of his suffering and his despair to become the humus out of which God's Spirit grew. . . some of the most beautiful music that has ever been composed. Treasure chests and trash cans.

In 1823 there was a student at a British school, Rugby School, his name was William Webb Ellis. He was playing soccer one day and he forgot through a mental lapse what game he was playing and instead of kicking the ball, he caught it. William Ellis caught the ball, ran to the goal, and all of a sudden, instead of hearing the cheering crowds he heard a mocking crowd, a laughing crowd. This student, William Ellis, at this British school called Rugby, was so humiliated and embarrassed he took his life. But someone was at that school, watched what William Ellis had done, and said "You know, that is not a bad idea, that is a whole different sport." They used that mistake to found a whole different sport, named it after the school that it started at, and it became known as rugby, which is the predecessor to football. But it did no good for William Ellis because he could not trust that a trash can could become a treasure chest. The whole story of the scriptures - go through it from beginning to end, from Genesis to the maps, and you will find over and over again, sisters and brothers, this story of how God takes what is worst, least, contemptible, lowest, and does what is greatest, best, and strongest. It is the story of the gospel.

We have images for this over and over again in the scriptures. We have an image for it on Ash Wednesday. What are ashes that we put on our forehead - ashes are burnt garbage. But perhaps the most powerful image that we have in all of the scriptures is the ultimate insult that you could do in the Bible ~ specifically named in Numbers 12:14 ~ and that is to spit on them. The ultimate insult! To spit on another human being, to curse somebody by spitting on them. One of the stories that came out of the Civil Rights Movement was about a third-grader, and eight year old by the name of Thelma. She was the first student to integrate the Mississippi public school system. When she came to school the first day her mother put her in a cute little pink dress. She showed up at school and the teacher said "Thelma, I want you to stand right there by your seat. You are not to sit yet." And so Thelma stood by her seat as the rest of the class marched in front of that seat and spat in her seat. An entire class of third graders. When they all went to their seats the teacher said to Thelma "You can sit down now." Spitting, a symbol of insult.

What did Jesus do when he wanted to heal the blind? He spat and he scooped out of the ground some earth. He used his spittle in that earth to make a healing compound and transformed a symbol of cursing and insult into an activity of healing and redemption. Read your Bible, over and over. What does God do? God turns cursing into curing, turns belittling into blessing, turns burrs into spurs. The curse of being hanged on a tree was transformed into a symbol of forgiveness and salvation. This is the gospel in a coffee bean, that what is the worst, the least, the last in your life God can turn it around and make it your greatest instrument for healing and for blessing. Moses was a murderer, he recycled his rage and hatred and became the greatest leader in Israel's history. Jacob was a thief and a rogue. He recycled his cunning and became the father of the nation. David was an adulterer. He recycled his passion and became the greatest of the kings. Peter was a boastful, swearing fisherman. He recycled his pride and became the rock upon which Christ built his church. Mary Magdalene recycled her love and became a saint. Zaccheus, a tax collector recycled his miserliness and became a disciple of Jesus. Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor, a hater of Christians, recycled his hatred and became the greatest of the missionary theologians. Esther, a harem girl, recycled her sex appeal and saved the Jewish people from history's first Holocaust. Ruth was an idol worshipper. But she recycled her foreignness and she became a progenitor of Jesus the Christ. You. You. What is worse than you? What is least in you? What is the very dregs of your life? God wants to turn it around - inside out, upside down, topsy-turvey and make it into a source of healing, wholeness, and redemption.

Do you believe that God can turn your trash into treasure? Do you believe that God can make your Sheols into Shilohs? Do you believe that God can take the worst out of your life and turn it into the best?
We are going to sing "We Believe in God" the song you sang just a few minutes ago. We are going to sing it one more time. But we are going to change something about the words. We are going to put the words up here. It starts off - we believe in God - that is not enough. We have a lot of people who believe in God. The Bible says even the devil believes in God. We need people out there, this church needs people, this world needs people who don't just believe in God, but who believe God. There is a realm of difference from believing in God, to believing God. If you believe God you can never be the same. We have a God who can turn trash cans into treasure chests.

(Congregation sings song)

Closing Words: Well, if you didn't accidentally eat your coffee bean already, you might want to save it and put it somewhere where you will see it a lot and remember that, just like with that coffee bean, God dips down deep into the trash can and pulls each one of us out, and he says "Hey, I think I can use that!" Miracles happen when the divine intersects with the ordinary. Go this week, be encouraged. God loves you, God can make your trash cans into treasure chests. Amen.

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This sermon was given by Leonard Sweet at Ginghamsburg Church in Tipp City, Ohio.

Reprinted with permission from Leonard Sweet.

Leonard Sweet is one of the most profound thinkers, speakers, and futurists of our time. He is the author of numerous articles, sermons, and books. Check out his newest work Post-Modern Pilgrims: First Century Passion for the 21st Century World now.